Thursday, November 06, 2014

Recap/Review: American Horror Story: Freak Show - Pink Cupcakes

Well, Halloween has come and gone and this week we got an episode with a lot of moments that even I didn't see coming to be honest.

Written by Jessica Sharzer
Directed by Michael Uppendahl

Hello Handsome: Given that Matt Bomer has previously worked with Ryan Murphy on an episode of Glee and earlier this year with The Normal Heart, it's fantastic that they managed to get him to finally appear on this show (is it wrong that I hope he's a regular next season?). In this episode he played a hustler whom Dell seemed to be in love (when I referred to moments I didn't see coming, Dell being in the closet wasn't one of them) but more importantly/unfortunately, Bomer's role in this episode was to be the helpless victim for an increasingly psychotic Dandy who brought back to Twisty's caravan and chopped him up. A waste of Bomer's talents but narratively at least it did serve a purpose though.

Yes, You Are A Bad Mother: This episode was a frustrating one when it came to Gloria. I liked that she was able to see through dandy's pathetic claim of a break in and realised that he murdered Dora. What I didn't like was the fact that she helped bury the body an then later dismissed the concern of Dora's college bound daughter, Regina (Gabourey Sidibe making her return) in favour of defending her awful parenting. Also given that Dandy then just showed up at the end with more blood on his hands, you just have to wonder how many more people will he bump off before Gloria even tries to rein him in?

Delusional, Much?: A part of me really wants to feel sorry for Elsa. We all know that Stanley is stringing her along but at the same time, even with a bit of an audience rejection (did not want to hear Life On Mars again), I just cannot sympathise with Elsa. Her chances of becoming a star are long gone, her snobbery towards television grating and the fact that she handed Bette and Dot over to Gloria and Dandy at the end proves to me that she doesn't deserve the stardom that she's desperately craving. I think I'd be fine if Stanley bumped her and Dell off but definitely not the rest of the freaks.

Cupcakes, Anyone?: For a large portion of this episode, Stanley spent a great deal of the time fantasising about murder (as a contrast to Dandy actually committing it, perhaps?). Mainly it was fantasising about killing Bette and Dot with the aid of some poisonous pink cupcakes, so either way, these girls are in danger for the remainder of the season. Much as I'm loving O'Hare on the show and his team up with Roberts fake medium, I really do hope that Stanley gets his comeuppance but I have a feeling he's at least going to kill someone off before that happens though.

More Than A Woman: This episode had a lot of interesting side plots. While Esmeralda/Maggie seems happy to help Stanley with his devious schemes, she also seemed desperate to get Jimmy to leave the camp as well while Jimmy nearly sleeping with Desiree revealed a lot more about her character. I liked Desiree in the previous episode and more so in this one, especially when she finally chose to ditch Dell once and for all. As for Dell, he lost my sympathy when he attacked that kind doctor who wanted to help Desiree.

Next week Dandy confesses his antics to Bette and Dot while Elsa has some questions to answer.

About Me

My name is Shawn Lunn and when I don't blog regularly on TV, I write a serious amount of reviews for a variety of different TV programmes as well as comics, books and DVDs pertaining to them (which can be found on my TV Tome and Shawnlunn2002 TVHITS Yahoo Group, also linked here) as well as on this blog. I'm a huge fan of all innovative and smart television.